Published on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Pesticide Tests May Use Pregnant Women, Kids
by Michael Doyle

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration would allow some limited pesticide
testing on children and pregnant women under controversial rules set to be
made final as early as this week.

After fielding about 50,000 public comments on its earlier human-testing
proposals, the Environmental Protection Agency is setting out final rules
that officials call tough and fair. But Democrats and environmentalists are
raising an outcry, and courts could remain busy sorting it all out.
"The fact that EPA allows pesticide testing of any kind on the most
vulnerable, including abused and neglected children, is simply astonishing,"
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., declared Monday.

The new rules would prohibit regulators from using so-called "intentional
exposure" research that involved children or pregnant women.

But originally intended to subminder what regulators described as "narrowly
defined circumstances," such research could still be used -- if the
researcher hadn't reported the results to the EPA.

The new rules require researchers to document their compliance with ethical
guidelines, but exempt certain overseas tests. Testing on adults could
proceed, following review by a new Human Studies Review Board that could
"comment on" but not stop a proposed experiment.

"EPA does not want to ignore potentially important information," the agency
states in its final rule. "At the same time, the agency's conduct should
encourage high ethical standards in research with human subjects."
Boxer and several colleagues were one step ahead of the EPA Monday, which
hadn't yet formally released the final rules protecting human subjects. But
a leaked draft of the new rules, spanning about 100 pages, spells out both
the new regulations and how they will be presented to the public.
EPA officials could not be reached for comment Monday.

"Humans process some substances differently from animals," the EPA notes in
its final rule, scheduled for publication in the daily Federal Register.
"Studies of this kind can provide essential support for safety monitoring
programs. Animal data alone can sometimes provide an incomplete or
misleading picture of a substance's safety or risk."

The 50,000 comments received by the EPA since last September showcase the
level of public interest, although regulators noted that 99 percent of the
comments were part of an e-mail or organized letter-writing campaign.

In June, the Senate imposed a moratorium on the EPA's use of human pesticide
testing; the House had adopted a similar moratorium. The moratorium is in
place until the final rule takes effect, which will be 60 days after
publication.

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